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Theda Bara |
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American Heritage Dictionary:
Bar·a |
, Theda 1890?-1955.
The Vampire Book:
Bara, Theda |
Theda Bara is best known as the silent movie star who brought the character of the vamp, the woman who used her allure to attach herself to a man and seduce and destroy him, to the silver screen. Bara was born Theodosia Goodman in Cincinnati, Ohio. Her father was an immigrant from Eastern Europe and her mother a wigmaker of French/German descent. She grew up in the prosperous Jewish community in the Avondale section of the city. She was drawn to acting at an early age and was a member of the drama club in high school. After two years at the University of Cincinnati, she dropped out, moved to New York, and became a stage actress.
In 1914, with her career stagnant, she met movie director Frank Powell. He obtained for her a first part as an extra in a now lost film, The Stain but by the end of the year she had been cast as the villainess in the Fox Company's new film, A Fool There Was. It was shot at the Fox Studio in Ft. Lee, New Jersey, while Theda lived in New York. The play with which the film began, inspired by a Rudyard Kipling poem, "The Vampire," was written by Porter Emerson Browne. It opened in New York in 1909 to critical and popular acclaim. The film version made Goodman, reborn as Theda Bara, a star. She played the vampire who destroyed the life of an American diplomat. William Fox may have decided to bank his future on the film because of the success of another recent film with a similar theme, The Vampire, released by the Kalem Film Company.
The uniqueness of A Fool There Was rested not so much with its originality as with the publicity program created by Fox. To sell the film with the unknown star, a fictional biography of Theda Bara was created and presented in a press conference in January 1915. She was described as an Arabian actress and came before the reporters in a fur-bedecked coat. After the press conference, a young Louella Parsons was granted a brief few minutes with Theda who confessed to the charade. Parsons sucked up the exclusive, a leak planned all along by Fox's publicity men. The day after the newspapers published the press account, Parsons released her exclusive, and the planned leak turned Theda into one of the most talked-about women in the country, and the movie had not yet opened.
A Fool There Was became one of the highest-grossing films of 1915. It was introduced by a live actor who read Kipling's poem. The critics praised Theda as a great actress and the film for not giving in to demands for a happy ending. While Fox searched for other films for his new star, he assigned Bara to a role in her second movie, The Kreutzer Sonata. She again played a wicked woman who stole the husband of another woman. She did not get away with it this time, however, and the wife eventually killed her. Her third film, The Clemenceau Case could also be classified as a vamp movie and was enormously successful. Theda was being praised by critics, drawing large audiences, and becoming the target of moral critics who were calling for the banning of her films.
While filming her fourth movie, The Devil's Daughter, the nickname she had picked up around the set, "Vamp," was mentioned to a reporter. He used it, and it became the common way to describe Theda and the roles in which she was being cast. As she played the part to reporters at press conferences, the publicity scripts became more involved and eventually suggested she was a reincarnation of some famous wicked ladies such as Lucretia Borgia or Elizabeth Bathory.
While Theda received good reviews for her next film, The Two Orphans, in which she played a heroine, it was a flop at the box office due in large part to Fox's pulling the publicity budget. Fox wanted her to return to the vamping. The next film was a gangster movie with the made-for-Theda title Sin. The Fox publicity camp went to work calling the nation to "Sin with Theda Bara." Sin was a great success in spite of being banned in several states.
Over the next several years Theda starred in a host of films (without dialogue to worry about, the production time on films was relatively short), and while she played a variety of roles, she continually returned to the vamp role of which her audiences yearned. Her star status earned her leads in more impressive films such as Carmen, Camille, and CleopatraTheda's vamp image permeated the popular culture and inspired a number of songs (mostly comedies) such as "The Vamp," " I'm a Jazz Vampire," "Since Sarah Saw Theda Bara," and "Sally Green, the Village Vamp," as well as a new dance, The Vampire Walk. However, from the heights of stardom, after only five years, in 1919 her career began to wane. Theda was assigned to a series of bad films and her drawing power dropped seriously. In attempting to change her image, she starred as an Irish lass in Kathleen Mavourneen, which received good reviews but turned into a disaster. It was rejected by the Irish because it portrayed the poverty in the old country and because Theda, a Jew, starred as an Irish girl. Angry theater patrons set off stink bombs and riots.
Theda left Fox in 1920 and found herself at age 35 a largely unmarketable commodity. While she made several movies during the 1920s, her career was obviously over, and after Madame Mystery in 1926, she never returned to the movies (although she did appear on the stage occasionally). She lived a long life in her Beverly Hills home, remembered to her death as the original vamp. She died in Hollywood in 1955.
Golden, Eva. Vamp: The Rise and Fall of Theda Bara. Vestal, NY: Emprise Publishing, 1996. 273 pp.
AMG AllMovie Guide:
Theda Bara |
Filmography:
Theda Bara |
Wikipedia on Answers.com:
Theda Bara |
| Theda Bara | |
|---|---|
| Born | Theodosia Burr Goodman July 29, 1885 Cincinnati, Ohio, U.S. |
| Died | April 13, 1955 (aged 69) Los Angeles, California, U.S. |
| Other names | The Vamp |
| Occupation | Actress |
| Years active | 1908–1926 |
| Spouse | Charles Brabin (m. 1921–1955) |
Theda Bara (
/ˈθiːdə ˈbærə/[1] thee-də bar-ə; July 29, 1885 – April 13, 1955), born Theodosia Burr Goodman, was an American silent film actress – one of the most popular of her era, and one of cinema's earliest sex symbols. Her femme fatale roles earned her the nickname "The Vamp" (short for vampire). The term "vamp" soon became a popular slang term for a sexually predatory woman. Bara, Valeska Suratt, and Musidora popularized the vamp persona in the early years of silent film and spawned imitators like Olga Petrova, Virginia Pearson, Rosemary Theby, Louise Glaum, Betty Blythe, Barbara La Marr, Carmel Myers, Nita Naldi, and Pola Negri.
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Theodosia Burr Goodman was born in the Avondale section of Cincinnati, Ohio. Her father was Bernard Goodman (1853–1936),[2] a prosperous Jewish tailor born in Poland. Her mother, Pauline Louise de Coppett (1861–1957), was born in Switzerland. Bernard and Pauline married in 1882.
Theda's siblings were a boy, Marque (1888–1954)[3] and a girl, Esther (1897–1965),[2] who also became a film actress as Lori Bara and married Francis W. Getty of London in 1920.
The origin of Bara's stage name is disputed; The Guinness Book of Movie Facts and Feats says it came from director Frank Powell, who learned Theda had a relative named Barranger. In promoting the 1917 film "Cleopatra", Fox Studio publicists noted that the name was an anagram of "Arab death", and her press agents claimed inaccurately that she was "the daughter of an Arab sheik and a French woman, born in the Sahara."[4][5]
In 1917 the Goodman family legally changed its surname to "Bara".[6]
Theda Bara attended Walnut Hills High School (1899–1903) and lived at 823 Hutchins Avenue. After attending the University of Cincinnati for two years, she worked in theater productions mainly but did explore other projects, moving to New York City in 1908. She made her Broadway debut in The Devil (1908).
Theda Bara resided in a villa-style home which served as the "honors villa" at Xavier University in Cincinnati, Ohio. Demolition of the home began in July, 2011 [7]
Theda Bara made more than 40 films between 1914 and 1926, but complete prints of only six still exist. Most were produced by William Fox, beginning with A Fool There Was (1915) and ending with The Lure of Ambition (1919). The phenomenal success of A Fool There Was gave William Fox the money to found Fox Film Corporation, while the ensuing films ensured the studio's success.
At the height of her fame, Bara was making $4,000 per week. She was one of the most popular movie stars, ranking behind only Charlie Chaplin and Mary Pickford.[8] Bara's best-known roles were as the "vamp", although she attempted to avoid typecasting by playing wholesome heroines in films such as Under Two Flags and Her Double Life. She also appeared as Juliet in a version of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. Although Bara took her craft seriously, she was too successful as an exotic "wanton woman" to develop a more versatile career.
Most of Bara's early films were shot on the East Coast, primarily at the Fox Studios in Fort Lee, New Jersey.[9] Bara lived with her family in New York City during this time. The rise of Hollywood as the center of the American film industry forced her to relocate to Los Angeles to film the epic Cleopatra (1917), which became one of Bara's biggest hits. No known prints of Cleopatra exist today, but numerous photographs of Bara in costume as the Queen of the Nile have survived.
Between 1915 and 1919, Bara was Fox studio's biggest star but, tired of being typecast as a vamp, she allowed her five-year contract with Fox to expire. Her final Fox film was The Lure of Ambition (1919). Her career suffered without Fox studio's support, and she did not make another film until The Unchastened Woman (1925) for Chadwick Pictures Corporation. Bara retired after making only one more film, the short comedy Madame Mystery (1926), made for Hal Roach, in which she parodied her vamp image.
About 1920, Bara had her portrait painted by the young Chicago portrait painter Theodore Lukits (1897–1992). The whereabouts of the portrait are unknown.
She was so impressed by his work that she encouraged him to move to Los Angeles where she could introduce him around. Lukits moved west in 1921 and developed a special relationship with Fox Studios, painting some of its stars, including Dolores Del Rio and selling works to Sol Wurtzel, who ran Fox's day to day operations. For the rest of his life Lukits credited his fortuitous meeting with Bara for some measure of his success in Hollywood.
Theda Bara has a higher percentage of lost films than any other actor with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. A 1937 fire at Fox's nitrate film storage vaults in New Jersey destroyed most of that studio's silent films. Out of her 40 films, only a few remain completely intact: The Stain (1914), A Fool There Was (1915), East Lynne (1916), The Unchastened Woman (1925), and 2 short comedies for Hal Roach. In addition to these, a few of her films remain in fragments including Cleopatra (just a few seconds of footage), a clip thought to be from The Soul of Buddha, and a few other unidentified clips featured in a French documentary, Theda Bara et William Fox (2001). Most of the clips can be seen in the documentary The Woman with the Hungry Eyes (2006).
Bara is also one of the most famous completely silent stars – she was never filmed in sound, lost or otherwise. She appeared on Cecil B. DeMille's Lux Radio Theatre in 1936 in a broadcast version of The Thin Man with William Powell and Myrna Loy.[10] The broadcast was preserved and is available for purchase.[11]
Bara is often cited as the first sex symbol[12] of the movies.[13] She was well known for wearing very revealing costumes in her films, which could still be considered risqué by today's standards, more than 90 years later. Such outfits were banned from Hollywood films after the Production Code started in 1930, and then was more strongly enforced in 1934.
It was popular at that time to promote an actress as mysterious, with an exotic background. The studios promoted Bara with a massive publicity campaign, billing her as the Egyptian-born daughter of a French actress and an Italian sculptor. They claimed she had spent her early years in the Sahara Desert under the shadow of the Sphinx, then moved to France to become a stage actress. (In fact, Bara had never been to Egypt or France). They called her the "Serpent of the Nile" and encouraged Bara to discuss mysticism and the occult in interviews. Some film historians point to this as the birth of two Hollywood phenomena: the studio publicity department and the press agent, which would later evolve into the public relations person.
At the height of Bara's fame, her vamp image was celebrated in popular songs of the day. The lyrics of "Red-Hot Hannah" state: "I know things that Theda Bara's just startin' to learn / Make my dresses from asbestos, I'm liable to burn...." The song, "Rebecca Came Back From Mecca", contains the lyrics "She's as bold as Theda Bara / Theda's bare but Becky's bare-er", The song "If I had a man like Valentino" contains the chorus lyric, "Theda Bara sure would die / She would never roll another eye".
Bara married British-born American film director Charles Brabin (1883–1957) in 1921. They had no children.
It is claimed her husband did not consider it proper for his wife to have a career, and this is why she did not make many more appearances after her marriage – although by 1921, her popularity was already waning in any case.
In 1949, producer Buddy DeSylva and Columbia Pictures expressed interest in making a movie of Bara's life, starring Betty Hutton, but the project never materialized.[14]
Bara died of stomach cancer in 1955 in Los Angeles, California, and was interred as Theda Bara Brabin in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California. Her death certificate incorrectly listed her birthdate as July 22, 1892.
Theda Bara has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and in 1994, she was honored with her image on a United States postage stamp designed by caricaturist Al Hirschfeld. In June 1996, two biographies appeared, Ron Genini's Theda Bara: A Biography (McFarland) and Eve Golden's Vamp (Emprise). In October 2005 TimeLine Films of Culver City premiered a film biography, Theda Bara: The Woman With the Hungry Eyes. A film by British video artist Georgina Starr titled Theda based around Bara's lost films premiered in London in November 2006.[15]
Bara has also been the subject of several fictional works including "In Theda Bara's Tent" by Diana Altman, "The Director's Cut: A Theda Bara Mystery" by Christopher DiGrazia and the play "Theda Bara and the Frontier Rabbi" by Bob Johnston.
The Fort Lee Film Commission dedicated Main Street and Linwood Avenue in Fort Lee, New Jersey, as "Theda Bara Way" in May 2006 to honor Bara, who made many of her films at the Fox Studio on Linwood and Main.
Theda Bara's image has been the symbol of the Chicago International Film Festival. A stark, black and white close up of her eyes set as repeated frames in a strip of film serves as the logo for the nonprofit festival.
Many films in which Theda Bara appeared were lost in a fire at Fox Studios storage facility in Little Ferry, New Jersey on July 9, 1937.[16] Note: Extant films are indicated by a ‡
| Year | Film | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1914 | The Stain ‡ | Gang moll | A print of the film was discovered in Australia in the 1990s. |
| 1915 | A Fool There Was ‡ | The Vamp | |
| The Kreutzer Sonata | Celia Friedlander | The film is now considered to be lost | |
| The Clemenceau Case | Iza | The film is now considered to be lost | |
| The Devil's Daughter | La Gioconda | The film is now considered to be lost | |
| Lady Audley's Secret | Helen Talboys | ||
| The Two Orphans | Henriette | The film is now considered to be lost | |
| Sin | Rosa | The film is now considered to be lost | |
| Carmen | Carmen | The film is now considered to be lost | |
| The Galley Slave | Francesca Brabaut | The film is now considered to be lost | |
| Destruction | Fernade | The film is now considered to be lost | |
| 1916 | The Serpent | Vania Lazar | The film is now considered to be lost |
| Gold and the Woman | Theresa Decordova | The film is now considered to be lost | |
| The Eternal Sapho | Laura Bruffins | The film is now considered to be lost | |
| East Lynne ‡ | Lady Isabel Carlisle | A print of this film survives in the film archive of the Museum of Modern Art. | |
| Under Two Flags | Cigarette | The film is now considered to be lost | |
| Her Double Life | Mary Doone | The film is now considered to be lost | |
| Romeo and Juliet | Juliet | The film is now considered to be lost | |
| The Vixen | Elsie Drummond | The film is now considered to be lost | |
| 1917 | The Darling of Paris | Esmeralda | A very loose adaptation of the novel Notre Dame de Paris by Victor Hugo The film is now considered to be lost. |
| The Tiger Woman | Princess Petrovitch | The film is now considered to be lost | |
| Her Greatest Love | Hazel | The film is now considered to be lost | |
| Heart and Soul | Jess | The film is now considered to be lost | |
| Camille | Marguerite Gauthier[17] | The film is now considered to be lost | |
| Cleopatra | Cleopatra | Approximately 40 seconds exist at George Eastman House | |
| The Rose of Blood | Lisza Tapenka | The film is now considered to be lost | |
| Madame Du Barry | Jeanne Vaubernier | The film is now considered to be lost | |
| 1918 | The Forbidden Path | Mary Lynde | The film is now considered to be lost |
| The Soul of Buddha | Priestess | A small fragment in Theda Bara et William Fox showing Theda smoking while being serenaded is thought to be a clip from this film. | |
| Under the Yoke | Maria Valverda | The film is now considered to be lost | |
| Salome | Salome | The film is now considered to be lost | |
| When a Woman Sins | Lilian Marchard / Poppea | The film is now considered to be lost | |
| The She Devil | Lorette | The film is now considered to be lost | |
| 1919 | The Light | Blanchette Dumond, aka Madame Lefresne | |
| When Men Desire | Marie Lohr | ||
| The Siren's Song | Marie Bernais | ||
| A Woman There Was | Princess Zara | ||
| Kathleen Mavourneen | Kathleen Cavanagh | ||
| La Belle Russe | Fleurett Sackton / La Belle Russe | ||
| The Lure of Ambition | Olga Dolan | ||
| 1925 | The Unchastened Woman ‡ | Caroline Knollys | |
| 1926 | Madame Mystery ‡ | Madame Mysterieux | |
| 45 Minutes from Hollywood ‡ | Herself |
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